{"id":34648,"date":"2025-12-10T13:05:30","date_gmt":"2025-12-10T19:05:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/?p=34648"},"modified":"2025-12-10T11:06:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-10T17:06:07","slug":"book-report-bo-jackson-playing-the-games-by-ellen-emerson-white-1990","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/2025\/12\/10\/book-report-bo-jackson-playing-the-games-by-ellen-emerson-white-1990\/","title":{"rendered":"Book Report: <i>Bo Jackson: Playing the Games<\/i> by Ellen Emerson White (1990)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/bsgfx\/bojacksonplayingthegames.jpg\" width=\"200\" alt=\"Book cover\" align=\"right\" hspace=\"4\">I don&#8217;t know when I got this book, but I picked it up with a couple of other shorter books not so much because I&#8217;m looking to pad my annual stats (although I am), but because they were on the <a href=\"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/2014\/05\/02\/wherein-gravity-suggest-my-immediate-reading-plans\/\" target=\"_new\">collapsed bookshelves<\/a> where I last think I spotted <em>Time and Again<\/em> by Jack Finney which I wanted to pick up since I just finished <em><a href=\"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/2025\/12\/09\/book-report-time-again-by-clifford-d-simak-1951\/\" target=\"_new\">Time &#038; Again<\/a><\/em> by Clifford D. Simak.  I didn&#8217;t find the book I was looking for, but I did find this little Scholastic sports bio.<\/p>\n<p>Bo Jackson was a big deal in the late 1980s, ainna?  He played baseball and football and had a huge Nike ad contract&#8211;remember the Bo Knows commercials?<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/VaSdlW1W9yU?si=b0i9d_uWbQHhijRP\" title=\"YouTube video player\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>This book, written in 1990, was at the peak of his career.  It&#8217;s kind of read that kind of bio, brimming with optimism.  In 1991, a football injury caused him to miss time in the football season and the whole baseball season; he came back to baseball, won comeback player of the year, but retired in 1994.  So he probably did not play long enough to get into either sport&#8217;s Hall of Fame&#8211;although he is the only athlete so far to have been a two sport all star.  But that&#8217;s beyond the scope of the book.<\/p>\n<p>The book itself tells about his youth, 8th of 10 chlidren and a bit of a J.D. but not a gangbanger or anything (apparently).  It talks about him taking up sports after he straightened out and being a natural athlete who didn&#8217;t like to practice, but got through on sheer athleticism, much to his coach&#8217;s chagrin.  He did multiple sports in college and completed his four years despite being drafted his junior year.<\/p>\n<p>So the book&#8217;s a bit of a hagiography, of course, and geared to kids, although perhaps Jackson would not be the best inspiration for them, at least in how practicing and study of a particular sport go.  However, he seems a standup guy.  He&#8217;s remained married to his college sweetheart and has done charitable work after his retirement.<\/p>\n<p>The book mentions, in passing, Deion Sanders, who was just coming into the leagues then.  I mention this because I read a similar biography of Sanders <a href=\"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/2012\/09\/28\/book-report-deion-sanders-brett-favre-by-richard-j-brenner-1996\/\" target=\"_new\">in 2012<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>So the hunt for the Finney continues after a couple of other books.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I don&#8217;t know when I got this book, but I picked it up with a couple of other shorter books not so much because I&#8217;m looking to pad my annual stats (although I am), but because they were on the collapsed bookshelves where I last think I spotted Time and Again by Jack Finney which [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3334,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34648","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-report","category-books"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34648","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3334"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34648"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34648\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34649,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34648\/revisions\/34649"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34648"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34648"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34648"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}